The man wouldn't wouldn't be named for most of the last three years and the primary and is considered a big government enemy of the tea party is suddenly being strongly embraced one by one by the new party elite since Romney clinched the nomination.

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Marco Rubio: George W. Bush 'Did a Fantastic Job'

George W. Bush, in my opinion, did a fantastic job as president over eight years, facing a set of circumstances during those eight years that are different from the circumstances that a President Romney would face.

It could have something to do with the fact Romney no longer need the anti Latino immigrant, small government tea baggers, they checked the polls and realized Bush is back to being supported by half the nation, or it could be a sign Romney has sent out the word (who is by the way very close to George W Bush, his father and brother) to try to give Bush the Reagan treatment that he lead America through its darkest hours since Pearl Harbor and unlike Hoover acted to stop a Great Depression.

Regardless if you consider it true or not it's a narrative that can sell to the public like the idea Reagan won the Cold War mainly the idea worked because they repeated it constantly and Reagan was likable personally.

Mitt Romney I think understands the party needs a new Reagan or Republican FDR like figure. By reforming Bush in the eyes of the public into the Republicans FDR they are also protecting Romney from attack given Mitt's current positions are all virtually the same as Bush's or to the right of Bush.

I think it's a politically astute plan. It's certainly smarter then McCain's idea that he could run away from Bush politically in 2008 and told the President to maintain a low profile and don't defend his policies. McCain was connected to all Bush's unpopular policies and the ones he used to distance himself from Bush that he was against waterboarding didn't help as the nearly 60% of the public supported it.

By not having Bush defend his policies in 2008 McCain was telling the President not to try to rebuild support for policies McCain himself virtually all strongly supported. Obama turned 2008 into a referendum on Bush/McCain's policies and Bush was told not to defend them by McCain's campaign and McCain made a half hearted defense of the major policies he backed like the TARP or Immigration Reform, and I could go on and on.

For Romney he already knows Obama will tar him as a Bush clone who will lead America off an economic cliff. That won't hurt him if the image of Bush is recast as having saved the country from total economic collapse. Romney has personally already started selling the notion to the public.

How effective the plan is I suspect in large part up to Bush and how willing he is to re-enter the spotlight in major way not to attack Obama, but to talk about the issues and remind the masses how likable he can be when he wants to be... Romney could only wish he had that kind of personal charm.

I hope he will be. He's a better president than the one we've got now. If another 9/11 happened tomorrow (heaven forbid), I would not at all be confident with Obama at the helm. That 3AM phone call still hasn't come yet.

This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "

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"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

Politico- a great analogy...I remember when W was taking about a recession he had inherited and liberals accused him of blaming Clinton for his problems- leave it to the left to have selective enforcement

This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "

I don't see why the horrific, embarassing disaster that was the Bush Presidency shouldn't be blamed for the continuing effects of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression since they, uh... caused it.

This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "

I don't see why the horrific, embarassing disaster that was the Bush Presidency shouldn't be blamed for the continuing effects of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression since they, uh... caused it.

Just one of their tactics to get people to forget about it so that more Republicans can get elected. Can't say I blame them for doing it, since it is an effective strategy.

When Bush talks prople remember what they liked about him. Hell even Cheney's numbers went up a good ten points when he was out there in the press on a daily basis back in 2010.

Yes it was a common meme of his second term the more Bush says the less the public likes him. But, he was pushing big and unpopular initiatives and each time he came on the news in 08 it seemed to be to announce a new taxpayer funded bailout.

Bush I really think in a 2-3 weeks could rebuild his favorability numbers solidly over 50%. The last poll in early 2012 nationally done by PPP had him at 45% approve and 46% disapprove.

The problem is according to one of his advisors he has lost his faith in his own instincts and long held political views. That he came in office wanting a humble foreign policy and after 911 he becomes the most interventionist President since FDR.

He promotes and believes in the capitalist system and suddenly the economic system is about to fail and he has to bail out the banks and autos becoming the most economicslly interventionist President since FDR.

He believed his party trusts his judgement, but they reject his SC pick and force him to pick a far right radical. His party also gives him a big old middle finger on Immigration reform.

He was forced to fire one of his long time friends Don Rumsfeld and his long time relationship with Cheney fell to pieces in his second term over Bush's belief there was serious skulduggery going on between Libby and Cheney.

Basically the Bush of 2000 had everything he believed turned upside on him and he no longer has faith in the conservative pro-capitalist principals he once believed in. He also lost his faith in most of his long time fiends in his WH except Condi Rice.

He still has 'friends' like Mitt Romney willing to write a personal check for 100,000$ to Bush's Freedom Institute where he spends most of his time in recient years doing things like raising cash that democratic elections can be held in certain African counties.

If Bush wanted to rebuild his popularity he could do it quickly, not even Obama can connect with the public on an emotional level the way Bush can when he wants to, but he is pretty depressed at the moment and would rather be working in his Institute, but Romney is trying to get him out of his shell he has rapped himself in and if he comes out W can be a very effective campaigner, organizer and money raiser when he so decides.

Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: This election is about Obama, not Bush. This is 2012, not 2008, not 2004, not 2000. 2012.

Bush is a divisive character that nobody is interested in bringing back into the spotlight. If Barack Obama wants to try to go to that well one more time, it will be one time too many.

Except for partisan hacks who still believe that George W. Bush was a fine President, any attempt to revive Dubya as a model worthy of emulation will fail for at least the next fifty years. Democrats could long enunciate the name "Hoover" as a reason to vote for just about any Democrat. At the least Herbert Hoover had a moral compass that Dubya seemed to lack. Hoover was the wrong man for the time. Dubya was the wrong President for any time -- a shallow, vainglorious, dishonest man who would have created a disaster or at the least turned a small calamity into a big one.

Sure he is divisive, but he has his supporters -- those who want to enrich themselves at the expense of others and reward themselves for treating others badly and selling off natural resources, and those who want their superstitions and bigotry accepted as undeniable fact. Greed, cruelty, and folly have their built-in constituencies, but a good society shows how ineffective and destructive they are. So what if he has his supporters -- the Mafia has its groupies, too. Is that good reason for giving command of the economy to crime syndicates?

This election is about George W. Bush to the extent that politicians can reject the disastrous economic policies and international priorities of a failed President. Maybe the 2008 election was more that than the election of 2012 because the Republicans will have a different nominee. But the policies are the same, as the 2010 election showed. Republicans underplayed those policies and spoke only of 'budget deficits' and the 'failure' of President Obama to restore the good times. The 'good times' were a destructive binge, and the hangover is at best the recognition that one needs some other way to get a satisfying life.

Face it: the corrupt boom of the Double-Zero Decade cannot be restored; nobody believes in it anymore. Everybody wants easy money, but wise people recognize that most 'easy money' implies that one gets more than one's share of the reward from the industry and effort of someone else. (Sure, that may be an inheritance, one of the more benign ways of living off the achievements of someone else; a Rockefeller heir can't really hurt a deceased ancestor).

The big landowners, the tycoons and heirs, and the executives no longer need a successful and independent middle class. They never did; they had to tolerate it because of democracy. But that said, big landowners, tycoons and heirs, and executives have frequently shown a contempt for democracy because democracy keeps those people from grabbing everything of value. In other countries they have shown themselves the financial backers of fascistic movements. Such a middle class as they need consists of retainers in all but name -- schoolteachers who indoctrinate (or are fired), cops and soldiers who mow down strikers and protesters, clergy who offer 'pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die' to workers who toil to exhaustion for near-starvation rations but eternal damnation to anyone who shows any sign of dissent or resentment of severe inequity, professionals who are serve the needs of members of the economic elite as if maids or gardeners or else perform triage upon those who can still be exploited for profit.

Take a good look at two of the cornerstones of the old American middle class -- small farmers and small businesspeople. The consolidation of small farms into bigger ones has been seen as progress. Giant, vertically-integrated companies have squeezed out small-scale mom-and-pop manufacturers, food processors, restaurants, and banks. These giant entities have designed themselves to need only an expendable workforce that needs little training so that anyone who works for them can be disposed of at a moment's notice. Such a workforce is best described wit the Marxist word proletariat.

Medical professionals have largely become employees for all practical purposes of insurance companies. Accountants know that they conceal scams of their clients or they lose their clients. Engineers at times are under pressure to cover up corner-cutting that can cause death and environmental calamities. Such professionals used to have some freedom of action that they no longer have.

Did you notice that the highly-educated part of the electorate voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008? It used to be that a high level of education was one of the strongest indicators of being a likely Republican voter. Such is no more so. Middle-class blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, and Jews voted heavily Democratic. Poor, undereducated whites voted heavily Republican. Maybe 'exotic' people distrust white elites that never trusted outsiders of any kind.

I can say this -- in the event of a culling of the middle class, as normally happens under Hard Right regimes, those parts that seem at all 'foreign' are the most vulnerable. Hard Right regimes need plenty of cheap labor, but they don't need people capable of or tending to think outside the Box.

When Bush talks people remember what they liked about him. Hell even Cheney's numbers went up a good ten points when he was out there in the press on a daily basis back in 2010.

Con-artists are adept at that. I'm sure that Dubya believed what he said, which is more than one can say of a swindler selling fecal investments. He had good buddies at Enrob Corporation, so even if he intended well his judgment is suspect.

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Yes it was a common meme of his second term the more Bush says the less the public likes him. But, he was pushing big and unpopular initiatives and each time he came on the news in 08 it seemed to be to announce a new taxpayer funded bailout.

People caught onto his dishonesty and incompetence and they associate those traits with him more than they associate the more personal ones. If he was pushing 'big and unpopular initiatives', then maybe he should have stuck to the old Republican theme of small government that gives no special break to anyone. Dubya betrayed that old theme and became a big-government right-winger.

It may take big measures to undo the damage of other big measures like the "Ownership Society" that Dubya promoted. That measure devoured capital and left $#!+ behind.

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Bush I really think in a 2-3 weeks could rebuild his favorability numbers solidly over 50%. The last poll in early 2012 nationally done by PPP had him at 45% approve and 46% disapprove.

What are you on?

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The problem is according to one of his advisors he has lost his faith in his own instincts and long held political views. That he came in office wanting a humble foreign policy and after 911 he becomes the most interventionist President since FDR.

Great leaders must be able to contradict their advisors when reality contradicts those advisors. "Humble foreign policy"? Bush I/Clinton would be fine, as President Obama now shows. Dubya simply lacked the capacity for ethical and political judgment.

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He promotes and believes in the capitalist system and suddenly the economic system is about to fail and he has to bail out the banks and autos becoming the most economically interventionist President since FDR.

If that isn't failure, what is? Does subprime lending to sell people housing that they could never afford look like sound politics? The post-WWII housing boom depended not so much upon WWII veterans being enticed into buying into unsustainable lifestyles as it did on working people having solid and reliable incomes that could allow them to buy housing, automobiles, household furnishings, and appliances. Real incomes for working people fell while Dubya was President even in the supposed good times, and such economic security as working people had vanished.

Remember: Ken Lay was one of the best friends of the 43rd President.

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He believed his party trusts his judgement, but they reject his SC pick and force him to pick a far right radical. His party also gives him a big old middle finger on Immigration reform.

Wrong on the first part -- he chose a personal crony who should have been rejected. Republicans snookered Democrats into rejecting that one and put in their ringer. Considering that President's lack of political astuteness I can only wonder why he achieved so little with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress for most of six years.

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He was forced to fire one of his long time friends Don Rumsfeld and his long time relationship with Cheney fell to pieces in his second term over Bush's belief there was serious skulduggery going on between Libby and Cheney.

Don Rumsfeld acted as if he should have instead been with his grandchildren. You can swim with sharks, but you had better show no weakness. I could only think of King Lear when I saw Don Rumsfeld. He might have been competent in his prime, but in old age everyone was undercutting him while feigning personal loyalty. As for the personal relationship with Dick Cheney, when you get or allow people to do nasty, dishonest, and corrupt things the consequences to personal relationships can get as ugly.

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Basically the Bush of 2000 had everything he believed turned upside on him and he no longer has faith in the conservative pro-capitalist principals he once believed in. He also lost his faith in most of his long time fiends in his WH except Condi Rice.

See above. But crony capitalism itself requires big government, and undoing its effects also requires big government. That's why we have President Obama.

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He still has 'friends' like Mitt Romney willing to write a personal check for 100,000$ to Bush's Freedom Institute where he spends most of his time in recent years doing things like raising cash that democratic elections can be held in certain African counties

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Freudian slip like the one that Africa is a big country? I do not trust Dubya for his judgment on what constitutes democracy; to an extent that I could have never believed in 2000 Dubya has made a travesty of 210 years of political tradition.

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If Bush wanted to rebuild his popularity he could do it quickly, not even Obama can connect with the public on an emotional level the way Bush can when he wants to, but he is pretty depressed at the moment and would rather be working in his Institute, but Romney is trying to get him out of his shell he has rapped (sic!) himself in and if he comes out W can be a very effective campaigner, organizer and money raiser when he so decides.

Bullhist! Dubya had his chance and blew it. President Obama may have difficulty relating to some parts of the American public (like white people in the Mountain South and Deep South), but he relates well to the vast majority of the rest. Dubya is a near-recluse whom one never sees on camera except at baseball games in which a contest between the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers cannot be seen as a contest between "Blue" and "Red" America.

If the Democrats need to raise money, then the image of Dubya will be very effective.

George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House. With that said, continuing to blame Bush after almost four years of Obama is weak. The Obama Jobless "Recovery" belongs to Obama. Obama got the stimulus he wanted, and of course Obamacare. Obama got everything he wanted, and now he wants to point fingers? Blaming somebody else for your problems is the easiest thing in the world to do, but people expect more from the president. Years have passed since Bush. "Blaming Bush" worked great in 2008. "Blaming Bush" did not help Democrats in 2010, so why do they think 2012 will be any different? Don't get me wrong - I hope Democrats continue to blame Bush. I think it's only slightly less of a loser than that populist garbage the Democrats seemed poised to run on. It's still a loser, though, so obviously I support this tact.

Obviously Team Romney has no plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W. Bush, contrary to what the OP may be inferring. Governor Romney is his own man with his own ideas, has never spent time in Washington, DC, and he is a stark contrast to George W. Bush in pretty much every way. Governor Romney may not become Reagan 2.0 (I certainly hope he does), but he will easily be the best president of the 21st century thus far.

« Last Edit: April 26, 2012, 10:28:27 am by Politico »

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"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."